Three on Thursday

Greetings, earthlings.  Greetings from Planet SUMMER.  We are just about done with Day Four of summer, and so far, so good.  I have to say, as much as it kills me to watch my kids grow up and farther away from that chubby gaggle of four sweet babies they used to be, there are definite advantages to having older kids.  Sure, they still fight, they still need random things like food, love and shelter...but it's nowhere near as all consuming as it used to be.  I don't panic when I can't pinpoint exactly where one of them is (at least not panic out loud.  In my head they are still chloroformed and folded up in the back of a pedophile's white cargo van).  If I have to be gone all day (I'm getting hours subbing for our school district preschool, yay!!), I can do so and only worry a tiny bit about coming home to a pile of burning rubble where the house once stood.  Yes, folks, the woman who spent the last week of school crying and wrapping herself in a cloak of melancholia is now seeing the silver lining.

And now, here's Three on Thursday.  Then I have to start studying for Trivia.  School's out, yo.  Back to my summer routine.  Last week I helped my team by knowing the name of the guy who played Urkel.  It's Jaleel White, and don't ask me how I knew that but on any given day wouldn't be able to tell you what any one of my kids was wearing.  You know, in case they're folded up in the back of a cargo van.  Sigh. 

1.  Have you been waiting with breathless anticipation to hear what my latest television addiction is?  I'm almost ashamed to admit this one.  It's Army Wives.  Yes, the Lifetime soap opera show that revolves around the lives of some women (and a dude) married to military guys.  I have been watching it for DAYS and I cannot stop.  And you know there are sexy military men to ogle at, right?  My favorite is the beefy kosher Delta Force guy, Chase Moran (played by Jeremy Davidson).  He's all kinds of steamy.  I think he looks like that one GI Joe doll, the one with the dark ginger beard...you know, this one:

What the hell is wrong with me?

2.  Mean Girl bullshit, when it happens in high school/college, is hurtful and torturous and a big bag of cruel.  Mean Girl bullshit, when it happens to women in their forties?  It's just pathetic.  Yes, I'm being cryptic because I don't want to perpetuate this garbage, but I will say this:  think carefully about what you say, and who is within earshot when you say it.  I once found a cute little picture at an estate sale.  A faded print with water spots and a dilapidated wood frame around it...it was in sorry shape but I had to buy it.  It shows two old biddies, rocking and knitting, with what has become one of my favorite sayings printed beneath them:

There is so much good in the worst of us
And so much bad in the best of us
That it hardly behooves any of us
To talk about the rest of us

Now, I'm not claiming sainthood here.  I've said things that I know I shouldn't have.  I have been catty, been snarky.  But it kills me to hear good friends being maligned.  Especially when it's coming from another good friend.  Ladies, be kind to each other.  Men have a shorter life expectancy than us, so someday we'll be all we have.  And you know we never forget a thing.

3.  Meet my new best friend:

It was less than $6.00 at Target and if I had to choose between this thing and another thing you bring to bed with you, I'd probably choose this. I may look like Mrs. Thurston Howell the Third when I wake up but it's ok (Walter hasn't complained yet).  Damn you, summer, with your high temperatures and your 5:30 a.m. sunrises.  I may not be able to change the weather but with my stunning new sleep mask I can at least snore a little later in the a.m. 

There's my three.  Now I have to study Dons, Rons, Swans, Johns and Khans.  That's one of the clues for Trivia tonight.  You know there will be a Ron Swanson question in there.  Yum.  We'll talk about that one later.

Stay tuned...I got rid of COMCAST CABLE and I'm gonna tell you allll about it.  If I can do it, anyone can.